The Best Laid Schemes
by BeGodlyBeLynn
Summary: This is a story about Nick: How he had control over his life, and then lost it; how his actions would inevitably catch up to him, how the threads of his fate intertwined with the fates of those around him, and of how he finally made amends with his past and began to move forward. This is a story of love, forgiveness, and living with your decisions.
1. The Rain Hides the Tears

"_The only easy day was yesterday."_

_-U.S. Navy SEAL motto_

1: The Rain Hides the Tears

Dean pushed aside the curtain, peering into the night. Rain tapped against the window. Outside, it was deathly cold.

"Still out there, huh?"

He turned, letting the curtain fall. Kelly was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and his knees hugged to his chest. He was shivering. Dean nodded mutely.

"How much food do we have left?" Dean asked him, his voice hushed. Kelly shook his head.

"Not much. We're running out of time."

He nodded, swallowing defeat. He knew they couldn't stay here forever; he'd known that for a long time. Still, it left a bitter taste in his mouth to know that he couldn't sustain them for longer. He still felt like it was his fault, despite Kelly and Marlena's insistence to the contrary. "We're all going to die anyway," she'd said. Strange that Marlena had considered those words of comfort.

_Marlena. _The girl still baffled him. Physically, she was just a kid—at the tender age of fourteen, she didn't exactly have a place in the war zone the world had become, but Dean had a feeling that she wasn't who she said she was. She knew the area too well. The house they were holed up in was on the outskirts of a part of town notorious for its gang activity, and she'd navigated them through like it was her home. Hell, maybe it was. There was just no telling with people these days. She'd known how to fire a gun…well,almost. When she'd first picked up a Desert Eagle, Kelly had narrowly saved her from breaking her own arm in half when she'd tried to hold it sideways. Just like a gangster in a movie, he thought. There were a thousand more things that didn't add up. She claimed she was from "around here," but her voice had a significant New York quality to it. She knew a great deal about the military. But most of all, she displayed a callous cold-bloodedness like he'd never seen before. She killed zombies without batting an eye, and a living human, too. She didn't admit it, but Dean suspected that she was loathe to the idea of being rescued. Still, she was just a kid. Maybe he was overreacting.

He couldn't complain, though. She was always alert and she didn't talk much. She was another pair of eyes. Really, that was all he could ask for.

"I found some food in the cellar." _Speak of the devil_, Dean thought. He looked around. Marlena was holding up a few cans of food and two bottles of water, smiling a little. "We might be able to hold out until the weather gets better."

"Cool. Put 'em here."

The girl obeyed, setting the food on the table and reaching for a can opener. "Can we eat something, please? I'm really hungry," she whined. Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. callous or not, Marlena could be a whiny little teenager whenever she wanted. He caught Kelly's eye; he shrugged.

"Go ahead," Dean told her. "Just leave some for us."

Happily, she cracked open a can of corn. Just as well, Dean thought. He hated the stuff and Kelly turned it down whenever he had the chance. His stomach growled and, realizing that it had been a while since he'd last eaten, he joined her at the table. He opened a can of beef stew and ate in silence.

It wasn't long before Kelly joined the party, dunking a spoon into Dean's can. The room was quiet save for the clink of silverware and the sound of chewing; finally, Marlena spoke.

"We'd better save some for later," she said quietly. Dean nodded. Reluctantly, the group set down their spoons.

_If Nick hadn't robbed us, we'd be able to eat more_, Dean thought darkly. Oh, what he wouldn't give to wring that little bastard's neck. He could only find solace in that some zombie had probably already done it for him.

* * *

><p>"We could have gone with them to New Orleans, you know," Francis said for the umpteenth time.<p>

"We know, Francis," Louis and Zoey said in unison.

By some miracle, they had made it away from the bridge in one piece, save for Bill. They'd done their best to give him a proper military sendoff, but the gunfire eventually attracted Infected and they'd had to dump his body in the river. Zoey had quietly taken his dog tags and wore them around her neck. She didn't know what she wanted to do with them. It might have been a way to remember him. More likely was that she still held onto the hope that she could find someone who knew him, and perhaps share in her grief for him.

Now, they walked through the streets of a ghost town. Everyone was on edge; they'd walked for what seemed like without seeing a single Infected. Something wasn't adding up; nowhere was this quiet. Ever. Not in the present situation. They'd had to make a large detour to avoid the horde drawn from the lowering of the bridge, and she wasn't sure if they were going the right way. They'd lost sight of the water, and it was troublesome.

"Do we even know if we're going the right way?" Apparently, Louis was thinking the same way. Zoey shrugged, trying not to show that this was bothering her as well. "I mean, not Elysium or anything, but…what if we're just walking into another war zone?"

"We're _in_ a war zone, Louis," snapped Francis. As if anyone needed reminding. Zoey ground her teeth and kept walking. This monotony was getting frustrating. She didn't mind the absence of zombies, but…if she could get an opportunity to fire her gun, it would put her mind to rest, at least a little. She wondered if she was going insane.

_Probably a little._

Louis tensed. He'd heard something. He nudged Francis and Zoey urgently, flipping the safety off his weapon. They followed suit, frowning. Louis mouthed, _Hunter._

They heard it too, after a fashion, the low, menacing growls that preceded the scream of an attacking Hunter. They edged closer, back to back, weapons facing outwards like a three-pronged human porcupine. The tiredness of walking was gone, replaced by adrenaline and fear. They all knew firsthand the capabilities of a Hunter.

There was silence. Nothing moved. Nobody spoke. No one even seemed to breathe.

Finally, Francis relaxed.

"False alarm, I guess," he grunted. "Let's keep moving."

Slowly, Zoey lowered her weapon and fell into step behind Francis. Louis was the last to go, casting a distrustful look at the road before turning on his heel and rejoining the group.

"The sky doesn't look so friendly," Zoey observed grimly. "We might have to find shelter."

"Bullshit. We've traveled in the rain before," Francis said. "We can do it again."

"Yeah, well back then Bill was still with us!" snapped Zoey. Her voice cracked a little.

There was silence. Louis stiffened, Francis stopped in his tracks. Zoey dropped her gaze furiously.

"We were better off as four," she said bitterly.

"What the hell could we have done?" demanded Francis. "If he hadn't done what he did, we'd be a group of zero right now."

"We could have done something!" shouted Zoey. "Someone should have gone with him! But no, we just—"

"There were Infected on the bridge!" snapped Louis. His voice faltered. "We couldn't have done anything."

"Yeah, I guess that's the touchstone of it all, isn't it?" snapped Zoey. "We couldn't have done anything! CEDA couldn't have done anything, so they lied to us and left us in this mess. The military couldn't have done anything, so they bombed our asses and left us to die! And now—" her voice rose to the point where it was almost hysterical— "now we couldn't do jack shit and someone else died! Cause we're all so helpless, I guess!"

"Zoey, shut up—"

"Oh, okay, shut me up, that's fine. No wonder we're in this fucking apocalypse—"

"Zoey—_shut up!_"

She faltered and fell silent, slowly lowering her arms. As she slowly returned to herself, she realized that Francis and Louis had their weapons drawn. Ashen-faced at her outburst, she shouldered her hunting rifle.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I…I don't know what got into me." She lowered her gaze, furiously blinking away tears.

"No sweat," Louis said. "I could have sworn I saw something."

"Maybe it was that Hunter," Francis suggested.

"Didn't look like one," he countered. "Whatever it is…I'm getting the heebie-jeebies about it. Let's keep moving."

"Who isn't?" grumbled Zoey, trailing behind the two men. The dog tags were cold against her chest.


	2. Que sais je?

2: _Que sais-je?_

Marlena fell asleep with her head on Dean's shoulder, rendering him temporarily immobile. Sighing, he leaned his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, searching for a train of thought to follow.

It was hard to believe that just two months ago, he had been a graduate student completing his thesis for microbiology at Stanford University. Those seemed like the good old days now, but Dean could still remember all the stress, the all-nighters, and cup after cup of empty Instant Noodle containers littered on the floor. He could still remember the cramming, and the frantic typing every night on the old, nearly obselete laptop he'd kept promising himself that he'd replace. Being a graduate student had been nothing near as romantic as he'd imagined, and he would have given anything to escape the monotony. Well, he'd gotten his wish, but he wished he hadn't. He would've been a confident twenty-five year old with a Ph.D., a beautiful fiancée, and a well-paying job at the university. Now, he was a terrified, traumatized, shaken was-student with a dead sweetheart, robbed by a petty con man and cowering in an inner-city flat because he didn't have the balls to face what was outside and try to find safety. Now he had no real goal in mind, except to be able to wake up and see the next day.

He thought about the irony of the situation. He was, for all intents and purposes, a scientist. True, he had grown up on a ranch and true, he had been able to fire a gun since he was twelve, but he was not a combative man. When it came down to it, Dean would rather write research papers and read H.L. Mencken than fight. He had never intended to uphold the family tradition of joining the military, and had always fought the relatives who tried to push him that direction. He'd run as far away as California to escape it. On the flip side of the coin there was Kelly, a twenty-eight year old who'd attended a military academy straight out of high school, who'd been a squad leader for years, who would always rather fight than flee—and Dean was the leader of the group. How this had transpired was a mystery to him. "A level head," Kelly had said. "I'd rather you called the shots than me." But he wouldn't say any more than that. Kelly had made his living off leading people in times of stress. Now Dean was in charge, and he wasn't sure that maybe the Marine calling the shots was a bad idea after all. He'd fucked up so many times. Some things had been out of his control, and some hadn't. He could have killed Nick when he'd had the chance. He should have. But his bullshit morality had kept him from pulling the trigger. Now, he had barely anything to show for it.

* * *

><p>Nick leaned back against the shivering wall of Virgil's boat, closing his eyes and taking a deep, shuddering breath. He was too goddamn tired for all this shit. What he wouldn't give for an aspirin, he thought. It felt like someone had stuck a knife into his head, twisted it, and stuck it out the other end. He massaged his temples, suppressing a small groan. Eventually, the pain became relatively bearable.<p>

Rochelle and Ellis were nowhere in sight—probably on the deck, watching the accursed death trap of a mansion disappear into the distance behind them. Coach was gone, too, leaving Nick alone in the cabin. Alone. Huh.

At first, that was a little bit of a shock. The past few days hadn't allowed for much privacy—sleeping on the floor in a dingy safe room, shivering in sleeping bags that smelled like someone had died in them didn't inspire much talk for personal space. In times like these, it was an odd thing to wish for, but now he capitalized on his new elbow room like a con man at a blackjack table, stretching out his legs and arms for the first time in what seemed like years.

Nick's hand moved to the inside pocket in his jacket. His fingers found a thin plastic something; he pulled it out and examined it.

It was a California driver's license, a souvenir of his time in Los Angeles. He seemed to recall that it was falsified. Nick turned it over in his fingers. It had been clever enough of a forgery to get him to Georgia. Now, he wished that he'd been called out on the fraud. It was hard for him to remind himself that the west coast probably wasn't any better off in the status quo. And it wasn't as if he'd be any better off in a penitentiary. Prisons were often more secure than the outside, but they were designed to keep people in, not out. He sighed. If he'd known that any of this was happening, he'd have booked a one-way ticket to Israel and never looked back. If he'd known that a zombie outbreak was not unfolding and not the Swine Flu 2.0, he probably would have done a lot of things.

There was something else in his pocket. Nick extracted it from his jacket; it was a green piece of what appeared to be some sort of flimsy paper. It took a moment for him to remember what it was, and when he did, he had to mentally slap himself.

It was a hundred dollar bill, an almost-crisp Ben Franklin. The only flaw in it was the straight fold down the middle that he'd made so that it would fit in his pocket, but other than that, it served as a pristine relic of the world that he used to know. He couldn't help but feel nostalgic. He also felt a little ridiculous. There was a time in his life when his entire existence had revolved around cash. It was plentiful, it was versatile, and it was nigh impossible for the authorities to trace. Nick had worked as a solo con artist, occasionally enlisting the help of others, but he had made a fortune out of trusting nobody and cheating everybody. It was strange, now, to be so dependent on his allies. It also terrified him. They didn't seem like the type, but Nick was paranoid of the idea that one of them might stick him up and leave him for dead. It was the reason why he slept with a knife under his pillow. It wasn't the Infected at all. It was his fellow survivors. It disgusted him to think it, but he had nearly been screwed over once before. He wouldn't let it happen again.

Nick heard footsteps approaching over the hum of the boat and stuffed both items back in his jacket pocket. He leaned back against the vibrating wall of the boat and tried to get some sleep, but his rest was soon interrupted by an abrupt stop and someone shouting that the boat needed more gas.

* * *

><p>She liked to think of the whole apocalypse thing as a war. It made the fighting easier, somehow. She could imagine that she was fighting on the side of humanity—on the side of good, even. It put a little perspective in what she was doing. When she was feeling particularly romantic, she could imagine that the survivors were just the remnants of a broken resistance fighting against a invading force of zombies. It was funny, really. There was really nothing to fight for. The zombies weren't out for justice, or conquest, hell, they probably weren't even angry. They were just hungry. That was it.<p>

Zoey sometimes wondered if she could find a video camera somewhere and carry it with her wherever she went, like the reporter from one of the Resident Evil movies, and then film the gory parts of the outbreak. Then piece together a film out of it and become famous when it was all over. Then she remembered what had happened to the woman with the camera. She also remembered that Resident Evil movies were some of the shittiest movies ever made, and promptly dropped that line of thought. Surely she could think of better zombie movies?

She hated the whole debacle. She hated that she couldn't take any passing minute for granted, hated that she was so goddamn fragile, hated that the world she'd once known was gone forever. She hated that she'd somehow had the luck to escape the zombies only to be hampered by the military. She hated that the only people she had left in this world were a box office rat and a tough-shit biker. Sure, Louis was _her_ box office rat and Francis was _her _tough-shit biker, but pre-war Zoey (for she continued to refer to the crisis as a war) would never have dreamed of associating with such people.

Most of all, Zoey hated how she could not think of anything anymore beyond zombies. They'd polluted her world and now they polluted her mind. In calmer times, she would have taken something just to think about something else, or to block the memories. In calmer times, though, she'd probably have imagined herself in a zombie apocalypse just to escape the drag of reality. The irony was not lost on her.

Retracing their steps back to the port and the boat would have been easy, if only they hadn't been so goddamn distracted. The roads seemed different. Zoey began to realize, with growing dread, that they might have made a mistake.

The hordes drawn from the double debacle with the bridge generator had wandered, but not far. As they neared the port, they began to notice that the number of Infected grew almost exponentially. Zoey felt the hairs on her neck stand on end. There were so goddamn many of them. Francis had quietly put away his shotgun in favor of a fire axe he'd found in an abandoned building, and Louis and Zoey followed suit, seeking out melee weapons until they were both adequately armed. A horde was the last thing they needed, especially in Louis' state. He was still limping. Although the thought of close combat made her skin crawl, she gripped her newly acquired machete and prayed that she wouldn't have to use it.

They hadn't spoken a word since they'd left the bridge, and for this there were two reasons. A part of it was instinct: the noise attracted the Infected and they knew to watch each others' backs anyhow. Instead, they communicated with hand motions. It was all they needed. There was no need for chatter, no reason for them to get to know each other better. That sort of thing was reserved for when they were safe. The other part of it was that there was nothing to talk about. With Bill's death had come the death of the casual banter that used to go on between them. There were no more one-liners, no more friendly jabs, no more conversation. That death had struck so close to their hearts, just when they thought they'd been so close to perceived salvation, was very shocking. Each of them was tangled up in their own thoughts, but nobody wanted to share anymore. It was just too hard.

Finally, unable to deal with the silence, Zoey spoke up.

"We are going the right way, right?" she asked quietly. Francis nodded mutely.

"We have to be," he replied tersely. "We've been following the signs for two hours."

"Yeah, with about fifty detours," she pointed out. "I think we need to get somewhere elevated, get our bearings."

Francis raised an eyebrow at her. "With all this?" He quietly gestured to a throng of Infected milling about on the next block. "I don't think we can take that risk."

"If we can get inside…"

"Let's give this route another shot," he cut her off. "We can take this road, I think, as long as we can keep visual contact with the water…"

He abruptly fell silent as he bumped into something very solid. Looking around, the three of them realized that they'd walked headlong into a dead end.

"Detour number fifty-one?" muttered Zoey.

Francis nodded grimly.

* * *

><p>AN: After a year's hiatus, Lynn is alive and updating this Left 4 Dead story! No need to thank me. ;) The title of the chapter is inspired by an old adage of skepticism, literally translating into "What do I know?" with the implied answer being "Nothing". I think it fits for the tone of the zombie apocalypse, don't you? By the way, I apologize if the jumping around of POVs is a bit confusing. I'll start jumping around way less once things really start getting under way.

If you've gotten this far, I sincerely thank you for giving me a chance, and I'd love you if you left me a review. You know you want to... I assure you that the plot for this story is more or less cemented in my mind; the hard part will be the implementation. Needless to say, updates will most likely be slow in coming, but I am unapologetic. If I'm not updating, there's a reason, and I'm not sorry. In any case, though, thank you for your time.


	3. Dead Fools

3: Dead Fools

The end came faster than he would have liked it.

It had started when he first heard the bridge go up in a cacophony of screeching metal and a wailing generator. They were about a half mile away from the bridge, and they heard everything. So did the Infected milling about in the houses.

The narrow, ill-kept streets around their refuge emptied rapidly as the Infected charged off in the direction of the bridge. Dean watched, his face half-hidden by the curtain, as they streamed off towards the source of the din. There was really only one explanation at this point. A group of survivors had come upon the bridge and for some reason had been stupid enough to try to raise it. Had they thought that they might be safe if they did? Didn't they know the Infected could climb? Maybe it was just a question of sheer height, but Dean thought and Dean knew that whoever had been foolhardy enough to bother with alerting such a large horde would probably pay dearly for it. In the distance, he could hear gunshots and screams. Then there was a series of explosions, and the roar of what Dean thought might have been multiple Tanks. Poor bastards, he thought. He couldn't think of a worse way to die.

Kelly joined him at the window. "I think this is our cue to go," he said.

"Where would we go?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "We don't have another refuge staked out."

"I don't think we have a choice," he said. "Whoever's on the bridge, God rest their souls, they gave us the window we needed. Now we can get the hell out of here."

"I don't want to take any chances," he replied firmly. "What if we run into trouble out there? There are only three of us."

Kelly shook his head. "Three is better than none," he said darkly, but let it drop.

Dean let the curtain fall. Deep down, he knew Kelly was right. There were no more Infected in the streets. They could leave, just pack up the food and the guns and leave without much trouble. They could go down to the port, find themselves a boat there, and if they were lucky, they could sail along the coastline and find a military base, or even an oil rig just staffed by the army. But what were the odds of actually finding a functional boat? The port would have emptied long ago from the initial panic. What were the chances of them finding anything at all? It was just as likely that they'd die a slow, agonizing death, lost at sea, forgotten by the world. What were the odds compared to the odds of them staying alive for much longer if they remained in the house? Either way, they faced the same fate: dying slowly as their supplies dwindled and the days grew ever hotter. He didn't know which scenario he hated more.

Marlena ended up making the decision for them.

They sat down that same evening to eat dinner, trying to ignore the now-fading gunshots in the distance. None of them spoke. It was now customary for them to spend the days in silence, not speaking simply for a lack of things to say. Each person was left alone with his or her thoughts. For Dean, the idea was rather unpleasant. He felt that he'd had too much time to dwell on the past. He could never really stop thinking of _her_, from the superficial things like what happened to the ring he'd bought her so many years ago to the circumstances surrounding her death. It always made him angry, it always saddened him, and it always left him unable to really form coherent words after. He didn't know what went through the minds of Kelly and Marlena. He tried to convince himself that he didn't care, a facade that grew weaker by the day.

There was a scrape of chair legs on linoleum as Marlena got up, breaking the silence. Dean was detached from his train of thought and he looked up curiously.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she announced, and left the room. Silence returned to the table.

A mere moment later, she was back in the doorway, her face white as a sheet.

"Oh God," she gasped. Dean looked up again; this time, he was worried. She was legitimately frightened. He had never seen her legitimately frightened before, and it was a little unsettling to see her like this now. Something really bad must have happened, he thought.

"What?" He stood up, too. "What's wrong?"

She pressed a finger to her lips. "You guys need to see this," she said quietly.

A Witch was in the house. An actual goddamn Witch was in the house.

How the hell had a Witch gotten into the house?

Somehow, a Witch had gotten into the house. Marlena silently pushed a door open a little ways and pointed through the crack. The cries were soft - Dean wasn't sure how he'd missed it - and the Witch herself was kneeling in the middle of the room, sobbing. His eyes drifted past her and landed on a broken window. He wasn't sure how he'd missed that, either. Was he really that distracted? This was a cause for worry. He stared at her, wondering exactly how detached he'd been to have missed these things.

Then the Witch spotted them, and began to growl quietly. The sound, no matter how many times he heard it, made his skin crawl. Marlena quietly shut the door, a thin slab of wood separating them from a seemingly invincible monster. His heart was pounding. They couldn't stay. They couldn't stay. That much was clear. If they startled her by some accident, then they would all be done for. There was no way that they could stay.

Finally, he made his decision.

"We'll clear out of here tonight," he said. "Before they come back. We'll head for the port and hope for the best."

They packed in silence and set out in silence. It was a long time before any of them spoke again.

"I'm glad you saw reason," Kelly finally said, quietly. Dean didn't reply. He hated being wrong about anything. He just hoped that Kelly was right, or they'd all be dead fools.


End file.
